The Supreme Court sets Civil Rights back decades (Updated)

Today’s Supreme Court decision in the New Haven Firefighter’s case is a huge blow to the civil rights movement.  Tim Wise says it better than I ever could:

A Ricci victory would throw civil rights jurisprudence into utter chaos, as well. In effect, such a result would mean that the court had said employers must take actions that produce disparate racial impact against people of color, or else be sued for disparate treatment of whites. In other words, they must violate one part of Title VII in order to not violate another portion of it. That such a holding is repugnant to the legislative intent of those who framed the law should be obvious. For the Supreme Court’s conservatives, who claim to be “strict constructionists,” beholden to legislative intent, to find for Ricci and thereby shred the framer’s intent for Title VII, would make a mockery of their entire judicial philosophy, and demonstrate the disingenuousness of their claims to believe in it.

This decision smacks of politics, as well.  The Right is already bludgeoning Sotomayor with it.  With what we have observed about the Republican party and how they walk in lockstep, do you really believe politics had nothing to do with today’s decision?

The worst part is that, with all the spin and politics surrounding this case, the central issue is getting lost.  Clearly, the City of New Haven thought the exam in question was faulty and not an accurate indicator of who should earn a promotion.  It was their intent to rectify this and come up with a better exam.  They should have been applauded for this, but instead the cry of “reverse racism” went up and people lost their damned minds.

This is White Privilege writ large, and now there is a legal precedent for it.  Any government employer attempting to be more inclusive is now open to reverse racism lawsuits.  How is that supposed to help race relations in our country?

The Senate’s recent apology for slavery rings very hollow today.

Update:  Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com weighed in on the subject (emphasis mine):

For all the chatter about “judicial activism” and that dreadful Roberts metaphor of “a neutral umpire calling balls and strikes,” it is so striking how frequently conservative judges invalidate policies which conservatives dislike as a political matter.  Here we have the conservative wing of the Court declaring illegal the employment decisions of local government officials, who used a political approach — diversity — which conservatives dislike on policy grounds.  So often, the outcomes of the allegedly neutral conservative judges are completely consistent with (and aggressively advance) the political preferences of conservatives (Bush v. Gore being only the most obvious example).  Indeed, few things are rarer than conservatives Justices invalidating policies that conservatives like politically, or upholding policies they despise — the true test for whether one applies the law independently of political and outcome preferences.

Hardly a record worth bragging about.  But conservatives are always too busy pointing out everyone else’s flaws to see their own.

Returning from the Aether

Thank you to all who have expressed your support and asked me to resume posting here.  It means a lot to me.

The election did me in, I admit it.  The naked hostility was more than I could stomach (not here…just in general).  So I took a break.

Hopefully I’m back now.  I’ve missed blogging, my inner film critic misses it.  And someone has to kick those “moderate” dems in the keester.  Now, where did I put my steel-toed boots….

Liveblogging the VP Debate

10:00pm:  Sarah Palin is lying like a rug.  Oh, and she can’t pronounce “nuclear”.  Who coached her, Bush?

As usual, Palin is expressing the idea of “change” and “regulation”, completely ignoring the fact that the Republicans have been in charge for the last 8 years.  She also repeats stupid lines like “they hate our freedom”.

Biden got in a few nice hits.  He pointed out McCain’s record on the Iraq war and diplomacy with…Spain.  But shame on you and Obama both for not supporting gay marriage!

Palin:  lie lie lie.  She’s a lying sack.  Been there, done that, don’t need another.

She spouts the party line about Iraq: victory, Petraus, central front in the War on Terror.  Hey, Sarah!  Bin Laden isn’t in Iraq, he’s in Pakistan!  Idiot.

If she says “maverick” again I might break the TV.  Maverick my ass!  McCain and Palin represent the status quo.  Just saying it doesn’t make it so.

Where’s the question about womens’ issues?

10:18pm: Palin thinks the VP isn’t part of the executive branch?  She shouldn’t refer to the constitution, since she clearly doesn’t know anything about it.

Biden DOES know the consitution.  And yes, the VP is part of the executive branch.  SMACKDOWN!  SCORE!!

Go Biden!  The maverick label is horse pucky.   Tell it!

So…how is appointing your best friends from high school to government positions bipartisan, Governor Palin?  Lying sack.  Oh, did I mention she’s a liar?

Oooh take a dig at the mainstream media.  You’re going to fight for me, Governor Palin?  You want to do something for me?  Drop out of the race, kthx~

They’re going to say she won the debate because she didn’t puke or pee on herself.  I expected no less from her, though.  She’s ambition incarnate, narcissistic, and a skilled liar.

My take: this did not help the McCain ticket.  She spewed a lot of talking points but avoided answering a lot of the questions.  Just saying “We’re going to change things/shake things up” and giving no details isn’t very convincing, especially when your running mate is part of the status quo.  Anyone who thinks she did well was probably already going to vote for McCain.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t liveblog.  Or maybe I should drink next time.

I’m off.  Gotta donate some more money to Obama.

How McCain deals with a crisis

John McCain showed us today how he deals with a crisis(h/t HuffingtonPost):

RUN AWAY!!!  RUN!!!!   FUQN RUUUUUUUUUUUN!!

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it.

Wanda Sykes weighs in on Election 2008

Wanda Sykes isn’t one to mince words, and last night on The Tonight Show was no exception.

How refreshing!  Thank you, Ms. Sykes.  I needed that.

Did you feel the world shake?

I did something today that I’ve never done before:  I called all of my elected representatives to tell them to vote against Paulson’s bailout plan.

I expected a lot of resistance.  Imagine my surprise to discover that Jim DeMint in particular has come out against the bailout.  This is a man who glided into the Senate in 2004 by agreeing with Bush about, well, everything.  Yet we are in total agreement on this issue!

I think I felt a rip in the space-time continuum.

Oh, yeah, and I smell a rat.  Why do I feel like this is just a huge trap being set for the Democrats?

Obama takes Lieberman behind the woodshed

(I read about this on Jack and Jill politics. Of course, the next thing I did was look for some video on YouTube.)

Yesterday, Joe Lieberman publicly challenged Obama’s judgement regarding foreign policy (h/t Daily Kos):

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), a McCain supporter, challenged Sen. Barack Obama’s judgment and experience on Israel and national security issues, following the Illinois senator’s speech this morning at the influential pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, conference in Washington. Lieberman said there was “a disconnect between some of the things [Obama] said today” and some of his past statements.

“To be specific, I was troubled earlier in the campaign season when Sen. Obama compared Iran and other rogue and terrorist states to the Soviet Union, and minimized the threat represented by Iran. I think that’s wrong. Today he said he thought Iran represented a grave threat. I think the statement he made today was right.”

Lieberman brought up Obama’s opposition to the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, pointing out it was supported by 29 Democratic senators. The amendment passed 76-22.

“That measure was supported by three-fourths of the Senate, including Sens. Reid, Schumer, Durbin and Clinton. Sen. Obama opposed it, saying it was saber-rattling referring to the threat of military force. If you look at the Kyl-Lieberman amendment as it was passed, it has none of that in it regarding military action. I still hope he will say that vote was a mistake and he will support that resolution.”

umm….opposing the Kyl-Lieberman admendment was a GOOD thing. The last thing the Senate needs to be doing is giving the administration an excuse to attack Iran.

But back to the point. Lieberman supports McCain and has all but declared himself a Republican. He certainly has no problem echoing GOP talking points. He’s been getting away with it for a year and a half, but it looks like that’s about to change.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

They had a 3-minute chat in a corner. Witnesses say Obama’s body language was “intimidating”. One hopes Obama was laying down the law and telling Lieberman where he’ll be next year if he doesn’t begin to play nice.

It’s about damned time someone took Lieberman to task for pretending to caucus with the Democrats while advancing the GOP’s failed Middle East policies. Let’s hope we elect enough Democratic senators this year so we can kick this poser to the curb.

Howard Dean: No more lobbyist or PAC money for the DNC

via Huffington Post:

“The DNC and the Obama Campaign are unified and working together to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Our presumptive nominee has pledged not to take donations from Washington lobbyists and from today going forward the DNC makes that pledge as well,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. “Senator Obama has promised to change the way things are done in Washington and this step is a sure sign of his commitment. The American people’s priorities will set the agenda in an Obama Administration, not the special interests.”

It’s about time. I’m glad Howard Dean is supporting Obama in this. This is what real change looks like, and it’s refreshing. Maybe now our government will work for its citizens instead of corporate interests.

Latest attack ad from the GOP

I first saw this on Racialicious:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Can’t say she wasn’t warned. Many pundits pointed out that Hillary’s scorched-earth strategy was enabling the right-wing smear machine, but she wouldn’t listen.

Let’s hope this election year puts an end to this kind of negative campaigning. Let’s defeat McCain on the issues, without stooping to character assassination.

Hillary to end her campaign on Friday

via Yahoo News:

“Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington on Friday to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity,” her communications director Howard Wolfson said.

Also in the speech, Clinton will urge once-warring Democrats to focus on the general election and defeating Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

The money quote is the following, though:

On the telephone call with impatient House supporters, Clinton was urged to draw a close to the contentious campaign, or at least express support for Obama. Her decision to acquiesce caught many in the campaign by surprise and left the campaign scrambling to finalize the logistics and specifics behind her campaign departure.

Obama had nothing to do with it. According to Keith Olbermann on Countdown, it was Clinton supporters like Charlie Rangel and party elders like Nancy Pelosi (both of whom were mentioned specifically by Olbermann) who put the pressure on Hillary to end her campaign and support Obama.

Good. Now we can get to the business of beating McCain. I suggest debates, as many as we can stand 🙂